Internet and Communism

Stressing out the importance of the internet for new generations and for media development is completely useless. Everyone knows what internet has done to communication and to the media concept as a whole.
What I am thinking about is the way a middle aged man or woman from an ex - communist country looks at the internet.
Only fifteen years ago Montenegro was still a society with dominance of one, Communist Party, and with strong control of the media. The journalists’ freedom reached the possible publishing of Party’s activities, and media served to promote the goals of Socialism.
After the crash of Communism, more freedom of speech and publishing was expected. The way media functioned had to be changed because political pluralism was coming. At that time journalists weren’t sure what was permitted and what was prohibited any more. The change of writing for readers and not for the Party, brought a chaos into their value system, critical thinking and objectivity.
Older journalists in Montenegro, who worked during the Communism era, still write for politicians. A very small number of them uses internet. I do not think they are aware of the interactivity or any other advantage of the internet. They hardly search the web when looking for important information. They don’t think of internet as something that can make their work easier, they are rather skeptical. Internet simply doesn’t fit their habits and their way of thinking – the less democracy there is, the better we write.
Younger journalists bring hope- they seem to be very opened for new, democratic age of journalism and for internet as one of the carriers of that process. Now the internet is common good and the capitalism looks like the only way to reach it.